(Topic ID: 275633)

Star Explorer - The "Dont Get No Respect" Club

By clodpole

3 years ago


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  • 19 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 4 months ago by Npbassman
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#12 3 years ago

I have a Sentinel Flying Aces, and to be honest I love the thing. I can't use a full size cabinet because I'm a full time wheelchair user. This sucks for a few reasons. I just don't have the room upstairs for a full size cabinet, and I would have to modify the cabinet's legs to play it. However, the Sentinel Flying Aces is small enough to fit in my "game room" and short enough for me to play it in a wheelchair!!

First photo was taken by my wife. My wife bought it off a friend for like $50 because it was broken and had sat in their garage for years. She and a friend of hers brought it home and snuck it into the basement where she knew I wouldn't see it and that my daughter wouldn't see it. Later that night, she couldn't stand it any longer and told me about it. I immediately had my daughter help my wife get it upstairs.

Second photo is first play. At first, it worked. I played maybe 2 games on it and the display was messed up. The display worked mostly at first. After a few plays, the flipper buttons quit working and the start button quit working. Mr. Ken Layton's excellent information allowed me to track down that it was the transistors for the drivers and pre-drivers. I know a little bit about PCB soldering, but I'm not the greatest at it. Without a secondary board, I decided to replace these transistors.

The third photo is me with the driver TIP102 and pre-driver transistors out of the PCB successfully without lifting or ruining traces!

The fourth photo is after I got the new transistors soldered in. I was certainly proud of myself at this point but hesitant to call it solved until I plugged it in and it worked. So I plugged it in and tested it out. It worked!! The display was now basically tanked, so I sent it out to a local electronics repair shop who charged me a whopping $6 each to replace the IC chips, plus the cost of the IC chips. Ken was not wrong when he said that these IC chips are kind of hard to find. Unfortunately I don't have photos of this either.

I ordered a rubber kit and a new ball. While that was shipping out, I decided I would take care of the playfield. The metal rings around the bop bumpers had started lifting, so I grabbed my heat gun and used that to heat the original glue on them. They didn't use glue, they used some stupid kind of like, double sided tape. So, not wanting to remove that (the metal is FLIMSY!!) I decided to use some two-part epoxy to glue it down. Being very careful, I mixed up a small amount and smeared it on the metal ring I already removed. I then placed it back down and held it down for a few minutes. Then I stuck a bunch of small heavy objects on it to hold it down over night. It worked, but that takes forever. So I got out the good old Super Glue. Where it had pulled up, I glued it back down carefully. Don't use a lot of it. But that worked amazingly well, actually.

Next, I decided to tackle the slingshot pads. These hadn't pulled as much, so I glued down what had. The contacts looked tarnished for the rollover switches so I went at them with piece of emery cloth and that cleaned them up. I thought the rings around the bumpers and the pads for the slingshots were pretty clean, but when I played the game both the slingshots and most of the bumpers were kind of spotty. So, I went at those with some emery cloth too. Next I wiped them down with some electrical cleaner on a rag. Then, I went hard at the playfield with a vacuum and some mild temperature water. I felt pretty confident that this was OK because most of the clearcoat on my playfield was in good shape. Also, I didn't use a boatload of water. Just enough to dampen a rag.

Next I went out and got some good carnuba wax. I waxed that thing like 4 times, each time rubbing excess wax off. The playfield shines like new now. Ok, time to give this thing a try with all the cleaning I did. And guess what? Holy crap, the slingshots and bumpers work EVERY time now!! The wax had the added benefit of giving the ball a bit less "traction" making it easier to get the weak flippers to play the game.

I've added a cheap "spring saver" I made. I'll be honest, I saw this mod elsewhere on the forums and the other user did a much better mod, but I used his to modify mine in almost the same way. The other user here on the boards did this mod so that about 30% of the time, the saver would bounce the ball back into the field of play and save it from just being a dead ball. I figured that because this game has no other purpose than to bounce the ball off as many things as possible before play ends, having a massive dead zone and a 30% chance of save isn't enough. So I held a ball so that about 50% of the lane passages will be dead and 50% will be saved. Eventually I'll get a nicer one and replace it. But at least it keeps the ball in play more.

I don't mind the dual flipper action, because I'll be honest... I was one of those pinball players that flipped both flippers all the time anyway lol. What does bother me is how weak they are. I saw on the PinWiki that Ken suggests that Sentinel/Phillips/Wonder Wizard should have used Gottlieb 2" flat top flippers. Has anyone done this? Is it a direct replacement? Can I seriously just buy the flat-top white 2" flippers, the thin shoe/shaft, and the panhead screws and get genuine flipper action? I'd assume you also get more power because the flipper's would no longer be offset? I've taken some measurements and doing the 2" flipper conversion will add 1/8" to the ball drain size. Can anyone confirm more flipper power with 2" flippers and was the mod worth doing?

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#14 3 years ago

I think my eventual plan is to convert this to a virtual pinball machine. But I wanted the feel of a real cabinet, and this kind of has it. Plus I wanted my kiddo to feel a "real" cabinet before I toss her onto virtual pinball.

I know the Bally home models (Fireball, Evil Knievel, etc..) get no love either and I spent entirely too long looking for a cheap fixer-upper with no luck. When my wife showed me this I was super happy. Since electronic parts are scarce, I intend to play the crap out of this thing until I can't fix it easily and buy the parts to convert it to virtual while I play it.

The playfield and backglass are going to make cool looking wall art.

#16 3 years ago
Quoted from NYP:

The late 70's were a hot time for these home model pins, here's a few more flyers I dug up, any of these ring a bell?
Aspen (Brunswick/Briarwood): https://nypinball.com/flyers/aspen/
Big Top (Wico): https://nypinball.com/flyers/big-top-3/
Captain Fantastic (Bally): https://nypinball.com/flyers/captain-fantastic-3/
Fireball (Bally): https://nypinball.com/flyers/fireball/
Galaxy Ranger (Bally): https://nypinball.com/flyers/galaxy-ranger/
Rodeo (Brunswick/Briarwood): https://nypinball.com/flyers/rodeo/
Strike (Zaccaria): https://nypinball.com/flyers/strike/
Super Star (Brunswick/Briarwood): https://nypinball.com/flyers/super-star/
Multi-game flyer (Brunswick/Briarwood): https://nypinball.com/flyers/brunswick-home-pinball/

Yes. I've been looking for a Bally Fireball home machine for a long time now. I'd also take a Galaxy Ranger or an Evil Knievel too. Unfortunately, they're harder to find than Star Explorer or Flying Aces and quite expensive when you do find them.

#17 3 years ago

I give up on the display. Whomever wrote the PinWiki (I suspect Mr. Layton did, and his knowledge on this game is phenomenal.) was correct when they said the following:

"IC102, IC103, IC104 = 4433 led digit driver chips (obsolete and very hard to find)"

They are. The people I have near me that do board repair said they probably couldn't source these again and that they probably wouldn't last long. They didn't lie. The display worked correctly for exactly a week and now it is doing some funny things again.

Furthermore, the rest of the machine is acting up now too. The three images show what the display looks like when you push the "Start" button, when you let go of the "Start" button, and after a quick game.

The first picture is pushing start. The second picture is right after letting go. The third picture is after a very quick game.

The machine will kick out a ball immediately after turning it on. It never used to do this and would wait until start is pushed. It will kick the ball out when being turned off as well. Finally there is some pretty bad static coming from the speaker when the game isn't being played. It is playable, though.

I've already begun sourcing virtual pinball parts. I don't expect this machine to last long without sourcing spare parts and I can't find any. Easier to source screens and PC parts. I'll let someone know when the parts I have are available. I don't suspect it will take long to build a virtual cabinet. I'll mainly only have the boards because I'd like to keep the playfield as wall art, but that may change later.

Edit I'll probably just off the whole thing cheap. Like pay for shipping cheap. About the only screen you can get in the cabinet is like 20" because the playfield is tiny.

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2 weeks later
#21 3 years ago

Has anyone actually been able to source the LED driver chips? Or a suitable replacement? 4433's don't exist and no replacement is made that I am aware of.

I have seen here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ic-cross-reference#post-5737658

Of course, by Ken, that 4093 is IC101 and 4013 is IC105. Is it safe to assume I can just replace all of the display IC's with these?

KenLayton can you at least confirm that I'm wasting my time?

#23 3 years ago
Quoted from transprtr4u:

Have a star explorer sitting in the garage, perhaps with all this info I should try to get it going again.
Got it from a garage sale 3 years ago for 25.00

If you choose not to do so, I will happily buy it off you and pay shipping. Edit: oh boy, you're quite a ways away

#25 3 years ago
Quoted from KenLayton:

I can't even find a datasheet on the 4433 chips let alone the finding the chips themselves.
IC101 is definitely a 4093 chip and IC105 is a 4013. Don't try to use those in place of the 4433 or you'll let out the magic smoke.

I hate magic smoke. Thanks, Ken. I guess I will just deal with a bad display.

#27 3 years ago

I managed to find a person in Detroit that has a Flying Aces. It's in pretty rough shape. The flippers don't work, some lights are dead, and the plexiglass is broken. I am ok with all of that because as far as I can tell, the display works as it is supposed to.

I didn't get a great price for it, but it was a fair one considering what is wrong with it. I can fix the flippers and have new plexiglass made, but I think I'm just going to pull the working display board from it and put it in mine.

The first photo is in the daylight. The second photo is in the dark. Them double zero's look mighty purdy.

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#29 3 years ago

Yes. I'd like to send the bad display board to a friend I know who does electronic component testing. He can actually repair IC chips. It might not be cheap to fix the bad board, but hopefully I can get some more info from him otherwise.

The crummy part is that he lives in Seattle and is away on work for a few weeks.

#34 3 years ago

I FREAKING WORKS!!!!

I got the new machine home and in the living room. The wife wasn't happy that I just dropped it in the living room but after a 6 hour drive and moving the unit, Tim and I were toasted. I set to work removing the back cabinet and pulling the display card.

Wife almost had supper done, so we all say down and had some grub. Afterwords, Tim went into the game room and pulled apart my cabinet. I put the new display board in and ran a test. It shows some funky numbers when you turn it on, but as soon as you push start the numbers go to double aughts. We had the plexiglass off, so I grabbed the ball and started rolling it across the 2,000 points mark. It racked up 2k points and I was already happy. So I did that for a while until I got all the digits to light up. Then I tested the ball display LEDs and the game over LED.

100% working. Isn't she beautiful? I'll get it all out back together and get more photos up. Bonus: the side rails and legs were in better shape than mine!

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#36 3 years ago

Here it is on first turn on. After pushing start. 2nd ball lit. Game over/Tilt lit.

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#38 3 years ago

I sourced a datasheet on the display IC chips. I also sourced a direct replacement for them. They're made by the same company, however I am positive a 3rd party such as Samsung, Qualcomm, or NEC make a compatible IC chip, we just have to find one.

Here is the datasheet (PDF): http://www.bg-electronics.de/datenblaetter/Schaltkreise/4426.pdf

Here is a direct replacement, made by the same company: https://www.amazon.com/Solid-State-Scientific-SCL4433ABE-piece/dp/B017HV9Q4K

I know I am not the only one looking for this info, so I'm getting it out there as public knowledge for all of you. Download the datasheet. Source 3rd party chips. We need them!

#40 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

Hey Dudemo, now that you've had 2 display boards in your machine, you can give me a clue or two. Did your machine kick out balls and increment ball count the same with both boards? And in each case, right away or after a delay?

As soon as the machine was turned on, it would kick a ball out. Even though the "Start" button was not pressed. It did this with both display boards.

When you sunk a ball and it was time for ball 2 play, it would hold in the ball chute for about a second before the kick out coil would engage and the ball would be kicked out into the plunger. As soon as the kick out coil engaged, the LED on the display board would switch. It did this with both display boards.

Now, nothing works. Bop coils are dead. Eject hole is dead. Flippers are dead. It keeps blowing the 2.1A circuit breaker. If I push that breaker, bop coils and slingshots work, flippers work, and the eject hole kicks for about 2 seconds. Then the circuit breaker pops again and nothing works. No matter what, it always scores.

Things I've tried:

- Replacing the good display board with my original display board. Nothing changes.

- Replacing my audio board with the donor card. Static went away, but the breaker still pops.

- Pulling the driver board and testing my solder skills. They pass, all drivers and pre-drivers are working.

- Pulling the donor motherboard and power supply and swapping it into my machine. It's worse. The breaker doesn't pop, but that's only because I suspect it is permanently broken. Regardless, the machine performed worse. It had no backglass lights, the flippers, bumpers, slingshots, and coils were all dead no matter what I did to it.

I believe I have a combination of bad boards that are not allowing me to play. I suspect BR104. Regardless, I know a few guys who can do board rebuilds pretty cheaply so that is my next plan.

#42 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

1st - thanks for the info.
2nd - your game was working, but now it just trips the circuit breaker and shuts off? But you didn't do or change anything?

No, I played a few games, set a high score, and shut it off to see if it retained that high score. When I turned it back ok, the eject coil kicked, the kick out coil kicked, and both held for about 3 seconds. Then the breaker popped and nothing works.

If I hold the breaker, the eject and kick out coil engaged and the bop bumpers/slingshots/flippers work but it will pop again in about 3 seconds and then nothing works again.

I'm also having a hard time finding literally anyone that will rebuild these boards. I've had 3 companies turn me down as soon as they saw the display board has 4433 chips. So yeah...

#44 3 years ago

Check the Facebook Marketplace for your area. I just found two more fairly close to me. One verified working fully (playfield is beat up and missing plexiglass) and one unknown.

$100/OBO on the unknown CB Charlie
$250/Firm on the working Star Explorer.

I'm about to own 4 of these.

#49 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

...and dudemo! What can I say? You're going to corner the market!

I like the game, and they're relatively cheap. My plan is to get a working Star Explorer and a working Flying Aces. I plan to keep the Aces stock but beef up the Star Explorer for independent 2" flippers and standard bop bumpers that don't require rings around them to work. Then I'd like to turn one into a "Bally Fireball" home model and the other into a virtual pinball cabinet with a 32" screen.

I'm also in talks with a company that can rebuild these PCB's. They go through and test components and then replace the ones that are failed or going to fail. I'm waiting on a quote. Hope it isn't outrageous. If the price is right, they're getting all of my boards so I have backups.

#51 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

I once saw a photo of a guy's game room, which had a sweet lineup of only kids' and home-use pinball tables. I thought "this guy's got style". I think you, dudemo, may be on your way to a similar game room. Way to go! You can line up 5 or 6 machines before you even hit $1000.

Maybe if I stick with Sentinel/Wonder Wizard pinball machines.

But I found a Bally Fireball III home model near me for $1,000. I'm picking it up Saturday!

#52 3 years ago

Update: I have a quote on a rebuild. Circuit Board Medic said they could rebuild them in 7-10 business days. Price for a total rebuild was fairly high. Out of the price range to be feasible. Also they didn't recommend it because in all likelihood most of the circuit board is good.

So I asked them how much to diagnose and replace the bad components, as well as every single IC chip on the boards. Every one, even if they're good. Better, but still probably more than most would be willing to spend on these machines.

Cheapest I could get was just replacing what's bad. Even then, you will have to supply 4433 IC chips. They don't stock them and cannot get them readily. Although I provided them with photos of the boards with rulers for size and close up high res images of most of the high failure points, they couldn't give me an exact quote. They said to expect it to be right around the $200 range.

On the positive side, I found out what was wrong with my pinball machine. Turns out there was a loose connection on the eject hole kicks out coil. Resoldering it fixed it.

More good news! I got the Star Explorer machine inside and it works perfectly. Display works great, audio is LOUD and crisp, and the playfield isn't in too bad of shape. Nothing some cleaning and waxing won't fix as well as some contact cement for the pads. I even have the history on this machine! The person I bought it from got it from his mom. They had it as kids and it got packed away when one of the kids broke the plexiglass. This was in 1983. It hasn't been turned on since!

Edit to add more info:

I did not realize how bad my machine actually was until I played with the Star Explorer machine. This Star Explorer is quite literally, brand new. While I clean the playfield, I swapped brains with my Flying Aces.

The Aces now works flawlessly. Both back cabinet lights work now, both bop bumpers that are supposed to flash actually do flash now. Before, only one back cab light worked and none of the bop bumpers flashed. Furthermore, when I turn on the machine I no longer see a garbled screen until you push start. It works 100% and even retains the high score unless you unplug it.

The ball eject coil still kicks on turn on, which makes me think this is normal. That's good to know.

2nd edit: boards are off to the post office getting shipped off to Circuit Board Medic. They got 2 display boards, 2 audio boards, 2 driver boards, and one motherboard. One motherboards because I've diagnosed two of mine as good and I only need them to swap out BR401 to an 8amp 400volt rectifier for independent flippers.

While I'm waiting, I also saw this post by Ken for 2" flipper mods: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/star-explorer-conversion-to-2-inch-flippers#post-5814519

So I ordered 4 of them, 2 for Aces and 2 for Explorer. I went with these specific flipper bats: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/star-explorer-conversion-to-2-inch-flippers#post-5814519 but I managed to get them in white instead of yellow from someone other than Marco's. I've also ordered a new rubber set for Explorer and standard flipper coils for the independent flipper mod I plan to do to it.

3rd edit to show off a little bit. My caretaker (another pinball fan) got busy last night and modified one of these cabinets. This is a mock-up and I intend to remove the computer from the case and fit inside the cabinet, but it's a damn good start for under 8 hours of work.

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#53 3 years ago

So, yeah. I'm not done. I have a few items I need to purchase. Mainly a backglass monitor, an IPAC2, and some convenient buttons for "coin" and a digital plunger because I don't think my DIY mod will work.

Computer is disassembled, parted out, and reconfigured to fit in the backglass/cabinet. There are 2 USB ports on the back, as well as a CF/SD/MicroSD card reader back there. I also bought a toggle switch for power. The motherboard USB ports have a small WiFi/Bluetooth combo card and a USB mini keyboard/touchpad combo adapter.

I used an old gaming rig for the brain. It's an Intel I5 @ 3.2Ghz, 8Gb DDR3, and a nVidia GTX 1060 TI FTW 6GB GDDR5 by EVGA. There is zero button lag on a wireless mini keyboard so I expect things to be better with an IPAC2. The playfield screen is a 24 inch TV, and I want to keep the aspect ratio fairly similar to a regular pinball cabinet, so I'm currently hunting for a very good used 19 inch monitor for the backglass. I plan to support it high so I can get a decently cheap DMD and some decent Bose computer speakers below the monitor.

As for Star Explorer... It's in worse shape than I thought. I might scrap the playfield because just about every single diode between coil wires are destroyed. They all work, but they chatter badly. The legs and rails are all in better shape than I have for my Aces, so they've been swapped and the junk ones are set to be cleaned, stripped, and painted. The spare set of legs and the virtual legs are also set to be stripped and painted. The virtual cabinet gets painted tomorrow. I went with semi-gloss black because I wanted to decorate it with a boatload of stickers I have been accumulating. Legs are getting chromed because anything else is blasphemy.

Here is a rough photo of them side by side. The previous owner of my home (my uncle, shout-out to uncle Steve!!) had a full size cabinet in the same room I've turned into my "play room". He called it "Penny", but it was really a 1978 Lucky 7 by Williams. These two machines take up about exactly what that machine takes up.

I have the Fireball home machine. I bartered them down to $800. It works, sort of. I believe it needs a new CPU. It's a 606-1000 machine that's known for having 5v problems. I've ordered new fuses, a rebuilt PSU, an in-line fuse for the primary, and 10 new balls. The Aces and Explorer need them too.

Swear to God my house is going to be the coolest on the block.

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#55 3 years ago
Quoted from KenLayton:

One mod you should consider is to install a power on-off switch in the usual location as commercial machines have them (bottom right front).

Funny you mention that. I just got back from the hardware store. I bought 4 power toggle switches lol. They're getting installed in the bottom of the cabinets, just as a commercial pinball machine would have them installed.

The Bally machine is much bigger than the Aces/Explorer. I'm going to have to reconfigure my play room to make it all fit.

#58 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

Hey Dudemo, is that some king of optical illusion in the picture of 2 Flying Aces? It looks like the one on the left is smaller than the one on the right.

It's a virtual cabinet. It's from an old Flying Aces cabinet that a friend cut down to fit a 24" TV.

Here's and updated photo of what it looks like now.

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#60 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

Here's a small conundrum: display board IC 106 is supposed to be a 4017, yet on the actual boards (that is, mine and dudemo's) as well as the one in the pinwiki photo, IC 106 has the same labels as ICs 102, 103 and 104, which are 4433s. Did they label different ICs the same?
I do notice that IC 102, 103 and 104 are marked "165-1", and IC 106 is marked "164-1". Is that all they did to differentiate ICs?

I also had this question and I was going to bring it up to Ken. I'd also like to know what a few of the other IC chips do.

I got lucky in that I hadn't actually mailed out my boards to Circuit Board Medics. They returned my email saying that they couldn't guarantee their repair, so they weren't going to repair it. Now I have to attempt to do something I haven't done in about 15 years: solder IC chips. I did managed to find a large supply of most of the IC chips, but because someone here... Coughclodpolecough Bought all the damn 4433's on Amazon, I had to source them from eBay. Same vendor, actually. I bought all 10. Sorry guys. I have 2 boards that need rebuilt.

#63 3 years ago

I would check Q110 through Q113 to make sure they're working like they should. Does the LED just hesitate or does the ball also take that long to kick back out?

You probably have a bad solder connection on the LED display. It's a pain to fix.

And if that score is legit, you've got my high score beat.

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#66 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

Ball and LED are synchronized. Funny behavior - let's say I turn the game on now; the ball will kick out immediately for ball 1. I play it, lose it, and it takes maybe :6 for the LED to increment and the ball to kick out for ball 2. Same for ball 3. Now, tomorrow, I turn on the game and the delay between balls is :21 each time. Pretty much the same gap between balls on any given session, but a different gap on another day!
Anyway, I cleaned and gapped the switch on the outhole today, just to make sure, and nothing got better.
The 136,300 score is legit, but the next game was about 12,000. It's a simple little game, but hard enough that scores don't come for free!

Either IC 106 is going bad or Q111-113 are failing. It's the only thing controlling them. I originally had an issue where it would register that the ball entered the trough and switch the LED light but not kick the ball out. Replacing the transistors and pre-driver transistors on the driver board fixed that.

#68 3 years ago

A good portion of my IC chips came in today. The op amps and quad op amps are still in transit, as well as the 4433's. Also the sockets.

@clodpole, any luck with your machine?

#70 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

Hi dudemo, no - no progress, though mostly 'cause I'm waiting for some more parts. I ordered a Motorola 741 chip to replace IC107, which also contributes to the ball count. I was going to replace that anyway, as it's the other chip which contributes to ball count and kick-out.
When you replaced your Q111 - 113 transistors had all 3 of them gone bad? My LED increment and ball kick-out occur simultaneously, no matter which ball, and with the same delay from ball 1 - ball 3. That makes me suspicious it's something upstream from the transistors.

I have not replaced Q111-113 transistors yet. They are on the display board. I have not touched them. I have replaced the pre-driver transistors on the driver board.

Speaking of the display board... I've got three of these fuckin things. Each one is different. The chips are the same. But I can document revisions. I have what I believe to be a first run board. Many things are wrong with this board. Solder points on IC chips are different and the board has been worked on from what I believe to be the factory. I'm going to call "Display 2" the working fully Star Explorer board and "Board 1" the Flying Aces board.

For example, on Board 1, on IC 105 there is a solder point missing totally. Photo one is an example of that. Photo two shows that point fixed. Again, Board 1 is Flying Aces, Board 2 is Star Explorer.

Photo 3 shows Aces having different solder points on the board in a different spot than Star Explorer. Specifically under the display LEDs. Photo 4 shows a SE board that works.

I'm providing this for documentation only. Feel free to steal the photos if you need. More board documentation to come.

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#71 3 years ago

I've been doing some measurements, and it looks as though the ball out area of the playfield has enough room for a 1000 contact switch as well as room to allow the ball to drain. If you hit it just right, you will get zero points but also save the ball. I'm going to attempt to save the contacts from a donor machine and wire them up properly to the rollover switch and ground. It will give another chance to save the ball, add points, or drain. Plus it looks better than a spring saver.

Flippers came today. They sent me the wrong parts. Not even close to what I ordered, lmao. I've contacted the seller and they're giving me a prepaid shipping thing I can print off to mail them back while they mail me out the right parts.

Here's a decent mock-up of my ball saver plan. Where my finger points is where I plan to have the contact switch.

Edit: Added photos of the completed project. Wiring not done, but it's trivial to do. Played a few rounds with it not wired up and with a crummy rubber band and I'm pretty happy with the results. It saves the ball better than the spring saver and also does allow the ball to drain quite easily.

Last edit: Wired up and working fantastic.
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#75 3 years ago
Quoted from midcoastsurf:

Interesting! Do you have a video showing it in action?

No. I wanted to get a new rubber on it and do some touch up fixes before I get video of it. As of now it works but it takes an incredible amount of ball force to trigger points. Part of that is because it has a dry stiff band, but some of it is also my contact switch placement.

Anyone else attempting this, beware: the contact wire is very brittle. Bend it too fast and it will just snap. Use Vice Grips and slow force to bend it and it will bend without snapping. If you look closely at mine, one of the back side contact wires broke far enough that I couldn't slot it into the playfield so I bent an arm out and secured it under the bumper pins. It works, but I'm not happy with it. I may try again with another set of contacts.

#76 3 years ago

You guys probably aren't that into virtual pinball, but here's what I did. The cabinet comes from an old Sentinel/Wonder Wizard Flying Aces. It has been shortened and the back replaced. New backglass cabinet mounting holes had to be drilled.

The playfield is a 24" TV. The backglass is a 19" TV. The flipper, start, coin, and plunger are all controlled with an IPAC2. The plunger is original and uses a rollover switch from an actual pinball machine. Pull the plunger back, it "rolls over" the switch and is assigned to the plunger key. It's actually the "Bonus score" switch from Flying Aces!

The playfield screen is wood framed in only for now until I can get to the hardware store to have some plexiglass cut to go over the screen. I intend to do like I did with the backglass plexiglass and paint it black around the screen.

I plan to high gloss black the cabinet but not clear coat it yet. My idea is that anyone who plays it has to sign it. Once it's been signed enough times or they start fading, I'll get it cleared. I also have a bunch of really cool vinyl arcade related stickers to slap all over it.

I bought an Arcade 1Up Centipede machine. Got it for a good price. Should make the game room a bit cooler.

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#78 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

You know, if it's a game and you can play it, and it makes you happy to be in the room, how can it be bad?
On an old subject, when you tested q111-113 transistors, what was your testing method?

A Fluke multimeter set to ohms. Identify Base, Collector, and Emitter pins. (Sentinel boards identify each with "B C E" respectively.) Test base>emitter, base>collector and collector>emitter. If any throw anything other than "OL", it's junk. Replace it.

#79 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

You know, if it's a game and you can play it, and it makes you happy to be in the room, how can it be bad?

It isn't bad, but I know virtual pinball gets some flak here. I kind of expected some leniency here because the games we are interested in are basically "toys" anyway.

For anyone curious, I'm using Virtual Pinball X, directb2s backglass server, ROMS, and a boatload of configurations. My eventual plan is to be able to remake the playfield and db2s assets for a virtual version of these games because one doesn't exist. The front end is PinballY because it is open source.

I'd like to also eventually get an accelerometer for nudges. I already have a plum bob for tilt. I just haven't implemented it yet.

#81 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

You remember Lionel trains - "Big Toys for Small Hands", right? Model railroaders just hated them (still do) because they weren't serious. Well, this thread is way off on the toy end of the spectrum. If some pinball buffs don't like these little games (real or virtual), there's plenty of other stuff for them to discuss elsewhere.
Meanwhile, I'll give those transistors a test tomorrow or Monday. BTW, did you remove them from the board to test?

I agree. These may be toys, but they have a real enough feel for a pinball "toy" for them to be fun. Better than those plastic garbage things Zizzle was putting out.

You should remove them to test the transistors, but you can in-circuit test them as well. Try and test from the top/front side, not the side that has been soldered in.

Edit: I think I'm getting rid Fireball today. My uncle used to work for Heathkit up in Benton Harbor Michigan and they had one of these machines in the break room. He said he spent so much time playing that machine he eventually wore grooves in the wood playfield from the ball traveling over it so many times. He came over last night and saw my pinball machine collection. He really wanted Fireball, I could tell. So I'm going to giving it to him. He can fix it, I'm positive.

And he will play the crap out of it.

Besides, I found an Elvis Alive home machine I really like and it works. They only want $400 for it because it is missing the legs and the trim but not the playfield glass.

Matter of fact, I'm on my way to Louisville KY to pick it up tomorrow.

#83 3 years ago
Quoted from KenLayton:

When you pick up that Alive and get it home, be sure to get some pictures of the inside of it (especially the underside of the playfield). There's not alot of pics of the interior on the internet.
Tell your uncle my dad bought tons of Heathkit products in the 1960s and 1970s. He bought lots of ham radio gear, test equipment, and even built TWO Heathkit color tv sets. I have several pieces of Heathkit test equipment myself. They were excellent products made to last and easy to repair. Sure wish they were still in the kit business.

I'll be sure to get good photos of the insides. Part of the reason I wanted it was because it seems to have less issues than the Fireball machine and can be less temperamental is what I hear.

I'll also tell my uncle this. He still thinks very highly of Heath. "They were like my family. Everyone there was just great people trying to build great products." It's because of him that I have many Heath products, especially clocks and radios.

Heath still makes kits. Albeit, overpriced junk kits, but they still make kits. Nothing really neat like they used to make though.

#86 3 years ago
Quoted from midcoastsurf:

Did you end up snagging it? If you are looking for home pins around $4-500, come up to Chicago. We have plenty

I didn't. It was in much worse shape than the photos lead me to believe. The backglass was broken and taped back together. The legs, trim, and drain cover were missing. And while it turned on, it didn't play. I determined that it was going to be more hassle than it was worth so I passed.

You've got me interested. I'm definitely interested in the home machines. You have them, or just the general area? I keep looking on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and other places but I just never see them. Plenty of full size pins, but never home pins.

#88 3 years ago
Quoted from midcoastsurf:

I personally wouldn’t pay more than $200 for a home machine. Most in my area are listed between $150-$275, but doubt they sell for that. Flying Aces, Alive, Aspen. The Fireball and Wizard - well, people pull EBay prices of the coin op version and list them for $1,500. Check OfferUp too. Good luck!

Believe me, I'm checking OfferUp. Flying Aces is on there... $500. Nope. Not even brand new. I got less than that into the 3 I already have.

The Bally home edition Elton John is on there... $4,500. For real?!

CB Charlie is on there... Not working: $350.

For real, you guys in Chicago have a great selection but your prices are outrageous. Machines I find in Detroit are regularly $500-1,000 cheaper than in Chicago.

#90 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

Meanwhile, back at the game which delivers ball 2 after a fairly long delay, I may have discovered a small clue.
When ball 1 is lost and sitting in the ball-return hole, I can push the circuit breaker which resets the display board and cause the ball to be ejected for play. The score goes up by 1100 points (?!) at the same time. If I just sit and wait, it takes about :25 before a new ball is delivered for play and nothing goes wrong with the score.

Any ideas?

This is normal operation. When I turn the machine on, I always see a score of 155,500 points. Sometimes the 155 part is stupid looking, but it's always that score. If I push the circuit breaker that controls the display, it goes up by 1,100 points. It also does this if you turn it off and turn it back on without unplugging it.

Pushing the display circuit breaker to reset the display should also reset the ball count.

#92 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

Hmmm, it doesn't reset the ball count - it increments it.

Sorry, I meant increment it.

#93 3 years ago

Here is turned on, start pressed.

Followed by a circuit breaker press. Notice ball incremented to "Ball 3". Score increased by 1,100 points.

Followed by one more press. Notice it does not say game over, but no ball number is lit. Score increased by 1,100 again. I've never noticed it does this.

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#97 3 years ago
Quoted from Chuckh:

I have one of these machines and have had it since 1978 when Santa Brought it . The machine works mostly. Display , scoring etc . The bumpers and flippers do not work . Two of the bumpers will move slightly when the reset is pushed. I cleaned all the coils but it made no difference in operation. I’m not an electronics person. I don’t think it has a major problem but have no idea . I would like to get the machine back to full operation. Glad I found this board

Have a look here: https://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sentinel_/_Wonder_Wizard

It tells you everything that can go wrong with the machine and how to fix it. Some of the IC chips required to fix it are hard to find, but it sounds like you won't have that problem because the display works.

Sounds like the driver board is shot. You'll need to disassemble the backglass and remove the driver board. On the driver board are 5 TIP 102 transistors and 5 pre-driver 2N4401 transistors. Replace those and the game should work good as new. Don't bother looking for a whole new board. You won't find one.

Quoted from midcoastsurf:

Agree. Prices are outrageous here in Chicago. I’ve been in the hobby since the mid 90’s, so my view on pricing is a little different than some of the newer folks coming in. I drove to Ohio to pick up my most recent machine.

I've been in the hobby since the mid-90's as well, but as a player and not an owner. Grew up with a 1978 Bally Star Trek in the basement, but it's long been dead and gone.

#102 3 years ago

That is super cool. Hope you get it working! I have an old Lab Volt bench variable power supply I was considering doing something like this with.

Also I love that you still have the old magnet bottle/can openers on your fridge. That's old school cool.

3 weeks later
#120 3 years ago
Quoted from clodpole:

dudemo, forgive me for butting in if you're there, but you've been silent for a while. Anyway, the answer: yes. The 2 rows of 5 transistors at the top of that board, each numbered with a "Q" at the beginning.

I'm glad you took over. I apologise for my absence. In the past weeks, i have lost my mom, step-dad, and two little brothers to a vehicle accident. I had to go to Michigan to attend to that. While in Michigan, I had an issue involving Covid-19, in which I contracted Covid-19 and was hospitalized. I was intubated, ventilated, and medically comatose for 9 days.

I am still hospitalized. I am in Ann Arbor, at the University of Michigan.

clodpole can you text me? I will PM you with my wife's cell phone number. She has your package ready to go.

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